Michael Moorcock - A Cure for Cancer

'Still here,' he said.

She nodded.

'And getting more so.'

There's something on your mind,' she murmured.

'Something indigestible. I've been too long in the wilderness, honey.'

'Don't say that, Jerry.'

'I've got to face it.'

'You can make it.'

'Sure. I can make it.'

'Are all your relatives dead now?'

'I sometimes think they must be.'

'What are you going to do?'

'I'l decide soon. The world is ruled by bad poets. I must do something about it.' That's your mission?'

'More or less, honey. More or less.'

'Are you asking or telling?'

'It's a question of polarities,' he told her as they slid about in the bed. 'A problem of equilibrium.'

'I told you. I don't understand philosophy.'

'I told you. This is physics.'

'What will become of you?'

'I'll probably die. I almost always do.'

'Don't die on me, liebchen.'

'A lot depends on the next movement.'

'Denn wovon lebt der Mensch?'

'Maybe. It's all a dreckhaufen really.'

'Isn't that the way you like it?'

'Sure.'

'You'll never die.'

'Not in that sense, of course. Still, it gets boring.'

Then why don't you stop?'

'Ich mochte auch mal was Schones sehen...'

His brain cleared. The process took a few minutes.

From somewhere there came a faint hissing sound. 'My programme,' he murmured, smiling back in the darkness.

An early postcard showing Loch Promenade, Douglas, Isle of Man, with a single-deck open-sided omnibus drawn by a horse. The people wear Edwardian clothes. The tower-clock in the foreground says 11.22. The card is post-marked Liverpool, 31 May 1968. The message and address are partially obscured -'We may arrive Sunday anyway see you soon! Julia pp. JRC.' 79 Tavistock Road, London, W.11.

It was a machine of intense beauty consisting of delicate red, gold and silver webs, strands of which brushed his face and had the vital warmth of human skin.

The webs rustled as he entered them, and they began to sing. He relaxed. Beesley's plan had almost worked and the Shift, in this instance, hadn't really helped, either. Still, the machine would set all that right. They certainly needed each other.

Refreshed, sobered, he contemplated the possibilities.

The next day Jerry and Karen went to the pictures. They sat in the front seats of the Circle and ate popcorn as they watched Drums Along the Mersey. Sir William Harrison played the moody, introverted explorer, Ina Shorrock was the proud Queen of Port Sunlight and Eric Bentcliffe emerged in one of his best roles as the rascally trader from the interior.

Leaving the cinema they walked hand in hand down West-bourne Grove in the late sunshine. A West Indian with a tray around his neck sold Jerry a pot of Chaulmoogra, guaranteed as treatment for leprosy.

A squadron of M-6o tanks, mounted on guarded flatcars, went past them towards Queensway. A crowd of dancing children followed the tanks. The grinning soldiers threw Hershey Bars and Tootsie Rolls to the children.

Jerry signalled for the gate of his Ladbroke Grove H. Q. to be opened. A Corporation Dust Cart turned the corner.

Balanced on the cab was a man in a fur jacket and a fez. His right hand clung to the truck's canopy and he shouted vigorously through a megaphone.

'Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!'

Jerry poured himself a Pernod and handed the glass of Tio Pepe to Karen von Krupp. They were dressed in identical velvet suits of violent violet from Mr Fish. The effect was a little more pleasing than a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Their flies were undone.

They lay naked on the red plush bed cover staring up at the blue plush canopy of the brass four poster. Their skins, black and pink, shone with health.

'Fresh air,' he said. 'That's it.'

'Why?'

'It'll be necessary to go to the country sooner or later. We've been in London a fortnight, you know.'

'And nothing's happened. Are you worried by the stillness?'

'I suppose so. There's a shipment tomorrow. It could go straight out again.' He sniffed at her hair.

She began to stroke the skin of his inner thigh.

'It's too good to be true.' She nipped his forearm with her teeth.

Having left one Phantom VI in Paris, Jerry didn't feel up to using another. Besides, he was in no hurry. 'We'll go by river, I think.'

He drew his vibragun and went upstairs.

When he next passed the door he was herding a group of sullen transmog patients in front of him. They all wore strait-waistcoats and most of them would have looked handsome or pretty if they had been able to manage a smile or two. Karen von Krupp patted her hair.